Friday letters: Revisiting Benghazi

Copyright 2013: Houston Chronicle

Updated 7:29 pm, Thursday, January 16, 2014

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Friday letters: Revisiting Benghazi

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Finally, truth

Regarding "New Benghazi report calls attack avoidable" (Page A1, Thursday), the Senate Intelligence Committee now has issued the Benghazi report on the tragedy that occurred when four Americans, including our ambassador, were killed by Muslim terrorists in Libya.

After 16 months of denial by the White House and the State Department, the truth is finally revealed. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had full knowledge of the real story and covered it up. It was not an anti-Muslim video that triggered the attack.

The Senate report of the Benghazi attack is too little, too late for saving any lives but not too late for trying to shift blame onto the dead ambassador. His pleas for help were ignored by an administration that had convinced itself that al-Qaida was on the run, and the same administration lacked the moral character to give the possibility of an attack relevance; they had an election to win and could not be seen as fearful of an attack.

The fact that the Senate report lays any blame on Stevens is further evidence of the true arrogance of the leadership in the Senate.

If failure to respond to intelligence warnings about a growing security crisis is involved, why does the Senate report not cite any specific intelligence warnings about an impending attack?

If violence spiked in Benghazi in June 2012 and the CIA, which had an annex there, was involved, why are there no reports of CIA involvement and warnings of an impending attack?

If the CIA did bolster security at its annex about a mile away, why wasn't security bolstered at the diplomatic compound where the attack took place? If there is no indication of involvement by al-Qaida or other international terrorist organizations in the attack, and intelligence suggests the attacks were likely put together in short order by local militia, following that day's violent protests in Cairo, how could this be missed by the CIA?